Are Casualty Autism-Baiting Me? | Autistic Representation in TV

hi Pals it's me artti there and PR only and this week's video are casualty autism baiting me so I made this video like over a year ago at this point um where I talk about some of my head can and autistic characters um from new and old media that I enjoy and Dylan from casualty was one of those I've been watching casual for like maybe 6 years with my mom and roughly like 3 or 4 years ago um was when I started questioning my own neurotypical status and felt pretty comfortable with the idea that I I'm autistic it is now official by the way and like yeah Dylan in particular really stood out to me I wonder why I I relate to him quite a lot he's you know very very serious about his job I mean he literally should be he's a [ __ ] doctor he's clearly well experienced uh well studied in his area plus he seems to know quite a lot outside of his typical area of medicine as well he's Moody he's miserable direct not great at like the whole social thing um but also he does try and is often better with his patients directly than he is with the typical social aspect he's not great at eye contact he's not great at expressing emotions particularly on his face and his best friend in the entire world is his dog der I would say I am quite similar to this man you know minus the alcoholism minus that part so on April 6th 2024 at 8:35 p.m. series 38 episode titled chartered's end had me screaming crying and throwing up when the new medical lead who I mentioned in my BBT video by the way just straight up asked Dylan when he's going to get officially assessed and D Dylan doesn't know what for and Patrick is just like autism he also says aspes but and it has been so so many weeks months even since this first episode and next to no information has been shared since um so I'm wondering are they autism baiting me much like que baiting but with Dylan because they accidentally wrote a character that reads autistic to many of its viewers and it's now trendy to be autistic and it's now like a thing to work out that you're autistic later on in your life in the initial episode the interaction between Dylan and Patrick went like this Patrick says there's a problem I need to get ahead of it Dylan am I the problem Patrick no but I think you have one so I think we should attack it headon so how can I help have you considered a proper diagnosis putting a name on it Dylan sorry you've lost me a diagnosis of what Patrick autism asperges you're on the Spectrum that's been plain to everyone for some time the obsessions you have the hyperfixations whatever you were on about earlier with coincidences communication difficulties abrasive relationships Dylan then buts in sorry can I stop you before you get any more offensive slay Patrick I'm just saying Dylan firstly the diagnosis of Aspergers was retired by the DSM 5 in 2013 probably something to do with the fact that spurger was a Nazi slay genuinely can't believe they [ __ ] said that on casualty which is a BBC show genuinely a little bit surprised by that Patrick you're right apologies ASD then Dylan secondly and most importantly how patronizing even if I were autistic slay he said used autistic not person first language slay it wouldn't stop me being a perfectly good doctor also slay something I've discussed before Patrick was something stopping you personally I think it could be capitalism the Tories the general collapse of British Society the collapse of the NHS I think any of those are probably the reason before it's the autism and yeah I also talked about this in my gra anatomy video um about the autistic doctor Dr Dixon and the barriers to being a doctor all like any kind of healthc care professional if you're disabled or specifically autistic and I had some interesting comments on that video which were very telling of the neur neurotypical in healthcare um and then a scene later Dylan has to tell the family of a patient that the patient is unlikely to wake from a coma but he does tell them and son is very aggressive you know like I get it it was a really [ __ ] situation overall that's kind of irrelevant to the point here um and Dylan just like actually cannot look at this man in the face or eyes like at all he then goes to patri he then goes to Patrick's office puts his badge card I whatever it is on the desk and Patrick goes meaning Dylan says I don't know if I can do this anymore I don't think I should try Patrick then says no no hang on we are dying on our feet here Dylan you can't just walk out as if he wasn't like just basically threatening his job anyway because of autism like okay and then says well I can't be here good you you know your boundaries get out Patrick then tries to emotionally manipulate him into staying um and saying that it's not enough to let patients down but he has to let the whole department Town down to um and Dylan still just [ __ ] walks out and I'm like slay as you should Dylan there's this kind of is weaved in and out of like other plot lines where there's no Dyan so there's no Dylan for a while it seems like most of the other staff have no idea where he is that he's seemingly quit and Stevie who is another doctor has to pick up the slack but no one gave her any warning either for that um and at the end of that episode called into the fire Stevie goes to talk to him at his home partly due to Faith who's a higher higher level nurse saying like this is very unlike Dylan to just not be showing up to work P.S he he he did give notices SL say he wasn't coming in it's Patrick who is not told anyone else that Dylan has said that um and that's part of that that plot line between Dylan and Patrick is that Patrick spends much of his time in the job um basically making everybody else around him looking competent particularly somewhat more marginalized people from Dylan who is possibly autistic to rash and uh I can't remember if definitely rash but possibly also reader um who are both um Muslim Asian people he is going after the Whistleblower even though that's literally [ __ ] illegal but like happens all the time right Brighton Brighton Hospital right Brighton County allegedly happens a lot actually so like that's kind of that whole plot line is that's part of that trying to just make everybody else look like they are suddenly incapable of doing their jobs what's the correlating thing that's changed well a a new a new annoying man in charge so yeah Stevie visits Dylan at his house booat and she says I like it looking around at the house booat what's this um she picks up a bottle of alcohol of some kind I don't know [ __ ] so I'm not even gonna try to pretend I know what it is I guess whiskey who knows Dylan says I haven't opened that yet uh Stevie says okay she then picks up and reads through some of the documents on the table underneath the bottle and she says this is a a deep dive Dylan um Dylan then responds wouldn't be here if ID read them earlier he basically lost a patient to a very rare complication that was being displayed in a very rare way as well Stevie says you know you shouldn't be kicking yourself for a one in 10,000 event um Dylan says but it wasn't just one was it there was another patient that died completely avoidably this is then also part of that previous plot with Patrick that Patrick is basically the one who's causing a lot of deaths in the department um and somehow making it look like everybody else because he's not the treating doctor and he's not writing his name on when he treats patients um and then they die or get even like more ill so that's kind of the gist of what that's about St says no hold on you can't blame yourself for those deaths we all know it takes more than one person to make a mistake Dylan says if you're going to go into a swi a Swiss cheese argument please don't you wouldn't have missed a pelicin allergy would you I wouldn't expect that of even a first year Stevie then says speaking of which you um missed your teaching earlier apparently the deer is pissed off Dyan says I know they rang Stevie says you checked they had a pelicin allergy right um and Dylan says well that's the point I don't know I just assume the patients are safe with me but perhaps they're not perhaps I've been relying on muscle memory um which I do think is like a good good ction generally for doctors to have like am I just relying too much on what I'm used to and am I missing things I really should be paying more attention to however this is a bit more unfounded because it's liter literally none of this was his fault um which they work out in a few episodes time Stevia then says noan you don't assume anything kind of an autistic slay you're one of the most Focus people I know uh Dylan says but what if the focus is a sign that I'm on the Spectrum and I feel a bit sad that he didn't just say autistic again like the first episode it's almost like depending on who's writing the episodes changes how people refer to autism which is really annoying really annoying um Stevie then also seems a little taken back by that comment um as I don't think it's been shared generally at all with anybody else I don't think she even knew this was what was going on for him um so she says all right so it's a sign on the Spectrum or I don't know it's a sign that like all of us you have a unique personality like I said I I think that Stevie and Dylan are very similar dry dead pan sarcastic humor kind of abrasive not super likable to a lot of people um she says whatever sign or symptom of your focus is the sentence makes no sense uh whatever sign or symptom that the focus is to it's what makes him a frustratingly amazing doctor Dylan says well I'm getting tested because two patients have died back to back on my watch and there is nothing worse Stevie than feeling like you are not safe I don't feel that I am safe because I'm not safe um Stevie then says okay then talk me through it all all of it Case by case um she decides to stay and let him talk through everything that happened and his research um I think she does this to help him process and be a sounding board and sort of give her thoughts on what she would have done Etc because she's also one of the like really highly skilled and experienced doctors and I think they've just generally been in similar positions before so yeah generally Dylan's results are not disclosed but they are brought up a few more times in following episodes by Patrick or by Dylan himself however the plot is more focused on Dylan and Stevie baning together to keep tabs on Patrick to get rid of him due to negligence and lacking in any actual like medical skill needed for his job rooll uh at least Hands-On job rooll he can go and do the admin stuff and keep out of everyone's business but he doesn't want to um they eventually get him out but much of the experience between Dylan and Patrick is very clear like dvo gaslighting uh attempts against Dylan and that if he is autistic he could lose his job under the guys that it makes him dangerous Patrick had often somehow managed to cover up and blame his fuckups on other people many of them were Dylan's patients or like someone that Dylan was overseeing patient so Dylan was Associated to the many of these patients somehow and an article came out in the metro in the Metro recently in real life uh where the actor for Dylan was interviewed and they specifically brought up the autism plotline um the article the article does quite a good job uh including certain terms like autistic rather than with autism Etc like other fluff ifications um as well as disclosing interesting statistics like um in a populationbased study by the University College London UCL in 2023 researchers estimated there may be between 150,000 and 500 ,000 people aged 20 to 49 in England who are autistic but have not received a diagnosis so the actor William Beck told me that while he was looking forward to exploring this side of Dyan the autistic side um he recognized the sensitivity surrounding putting a spotlight on an adult living with autism never mind without previously receiving a diagnosis William Beck says I knew was going to be very important to bear in mind that each individual is an individual first and foremost yes accurate well done and very very rarely I think would people choose to Define themselves by a diagnosis diagnosis diagnosis iffy statement Dyan I would say that would be particularly true of him and yet he was confronted by this obligation to examine this thing that he had probably put to the back of his mind again it's about remembering that Dylan is Dylan he a good doctor he's got to go to work and he's got to get it done this stuff it's like the weight of a storyline cooking away in the background in our show it sometimes bubbles away for a few episodes and then it gets examined for this it's been bubbling away and it's like there's a monkey on his back he's got to feed it but he doesn't want to um then when you get to the point where he takes the monkey off his back and wrestles with it the answer is more complicated than you would have thought the the answer is far more nuanced and hopefully that's the bit people recognize it's not the specifics of saying well this is how it is for people it's saying first and foremost it's about you this very last statement I think is good and appropriate cuz yes we all say you know if you've met one autistic person then you've met one autistic person um but there is obviously going to be a lot of similarities cuz like isn't that the point of a diagnosis um the same hand of things are disabling to to to autistic people you know like as like a basic summary he added we live in a society now where we are psychologically literate and psychiatrically literate literate in terms of mental health in a way that no generation before us has been as such we're forced to confront things there's a lot of talk in mental health about spectrums and I think that that's the key to understanding it a spectrum is infinite possibilities to satisfy some or I suppose none of the of those Diagnostics we're all on there somewhere the point is to hopefully offer those people who have come to that realization later on that we're all on there somewhere and like this is ering awfully close to we're all a little bit autistic um which I'm not keen on like yes many autistic struggles are no typical or generally like alistic struggles too but the reason it's a whole diagnosis is because it's so much of a struggle it's disruptive like that's why it's a diagnosis and not just we're all like that we not we not um the article then says the storyline came to a conclusion when Dylan read the result of his Autism test how is that a conclusion babes that's a cliffhanger that's literally a cliffhanger we we didn't we didn't we didn't find anything out that's a cliffhanger we're waiting to find out we are hanging on for dear [ __ ] life to find out what the answer was I just wanted to throw this in there real quick as well yes I pulled this from Wiki but honestly this is like basically it a cliffhanger or Cliffhanger ending is a plot device in fiction which features a main character in a precarious or difficult dilemma all confronted with a shocking Revelation at the end of an episode or a film of serialized fiction I don't know why that was necessary um a clear fanger is hoped to incentivize an audience to return to see how the characters resolve the dilemma I feel like them leaving us with Dylan not stating what the report said is literally just a cliffhanger to keep the audience or a particular part of Their audience um likes to stick around because like I said there's been like no [ __ ] Dylan for ages or if there is Dylan no autism so like for will he confirmed that he would be intrigued to look at this further but knows it would all depend on timings as well I think it depends on what happens to him there are of course situations where the story line could be reexamined of itself but the way the story line was introduced was really just a helper to the Patrick Dylan story that is where things of delicacy are best examined as part of another story line I don't disagree with that but sometimes it gives you the chance to wear it lightly I think there's every opportunity for it to be reexamined but it would have to be at the right time to me personally this is where we meet the same old issue in media where it comes to disability when it comes to disability that disability is almost always a plot device like this was how I felt about wolf country the book it's always a plot device to service another plot rather than its own plot like sure I think the way it came out was an interesting way for it to begin but to me that's all it was a beginning there is so much possibility for Dylan's character to dive deeper into exploring being autistic being autistic as a doctor being autistic as an alcoholic um the wise of his life and behavior the connection he had to his dog versus everybody else um the privilege of being a CIS hat white autistic man who's been able to hold down a job and survive um versus more marginalized autistic people will he go through a skill regression from this discovery like most people seem to experience um and what kinds of skills will he lose how will this impact positively and negatively his relationships with people or his job also as a side note like this weird situationship they keep like referring to with the mental health the new mental health nurse like it makes no sense to me I I not getting it um she was very mean to him um made a lot of assumptions and then like just kind of just started being nice to him out of nowhere and he's just like accepting it and like I kind of feel like this could be another autism trait the naivity in like goess or like the ignoring or missing of red flags in other people's behavior like she was she was literally going to report him I know he might not have known that but like she was so hostile with him at the beginning and was so sure he was doing something wrong which is great after the whole Patrick thing and it was brought up in the article to like how autistic does this sound Lads I've made this difficult period for Dylan he's found himself in what we're calling a situationship with mental health nurse Sofia do you think Dylan knows what it is will the actor laughed this is such a melstrom for him he's using words I don't I don't even know what the Maelstrom the K9 grief he's going through cuz his dog recently just died um the workplace upheaval um he also had a colleague attempt suicide he says Dylan feel buffeted again what um somebody comes along who stops and takes a long hard look at him and I think he just sort of goes come on then um Dyan with would just be perplexed by the whole thing he added pondering over the possibility of Dylan and Sophia actually confronting their feelings for each other and like yeah I am going to personally even though I think there's a reasonably large age gap between Stevie and Dylan I have a personal preference for them two as a relationship over him and Sophia um he's had such a terrible time with relationships wife cheated on him with someone he works with uh has been alone basically since then he almost got with faith at one point and was stolen by the same man who stole his wife there was something else there was somebody else as well I'm sure but I can't remember who it was now but like he oh yeah the the previous um nurse in charge who was then shagging his mate instead and then she went to prison so at me just giving up you know so like yeah my final word on this is um to the BBC go on then give us a Canon autistic doctor I [ __ ] dare you it just generally feels like they are using the trend of lots of people now realizing they're autistic being diagnosed or self diagnosing as like a way of either bringing in or keeping um bringing in new viewers or keeping maybe some bored viewers or inciting some igniting some new interest in like a long-term character without actually planning to commit to it um they've used this possibility of him being autistic as part of a different plot line line and I've kind of just left it there um there hasn't been much acknowledgement or recognition or you know any any more like subtle moments for Dylan um or other people he's working with that kind of go maybe he is autistic especially as well like the main SL only person who even knows about this besides Patrick who is now not in the show anymore is Stevie and Stevie is not exactly known as the kind of person to just like forget about something like that or to you know keep something to herself for the most part however at the moment she is very much wrapped up in her own other very very separate plotline so maybe that's why we haven't seen anything from her in particular I don't think we've seen them interacting much together really in a while at least especially since this main um plot line where they were both doing everything they could good to keep tabs on Patrick and to get rid of him or get him fired Etc from his job role it's they haven't really been around each other as much since that plot maybe he is like thinking about it maybe he's trying to come to terms with this before he makes any decisions on what he's doing blah blah blah or like there's not really so far seemingly a building up to something happening with this and it's just sort of like we'll waiting see in case we're bored and we want to use autism as a different plotline to possibly not be great or just to go R jokes he's not autistic he's the the fake autism that's also a different diagnosis apparently this really makes no sense so yeah it's frustrating I feel I feel autism baited at the moment cuz there's been no confirmation I think it would be nice for the audience to at least know one way or another and then the rest of it to be built around it but like at the moment I don't I don't know if that's happening it does sound like from this interview it may come back soon especially maybe around or because of the possible relationship happening between Dylan and Sophia but like yeah there's just kind of not been any recognition or acknowledgement of it since he was like I've I've had my assessment I've got the results anyway bye just give me a Canon autistic Doctor Who isn't the good doctor please it's also like current day because the gra Anatomy one is a pretty old couple of episodes like we need something more new and updated come on also BBC um if you want to hire some new younger doctor doctors or nurses who are also autistic to be part of the plot I'm here and I have experienced being autistic because I'm autistic I also experience acting thank you I'll be great I'm just like always plug in like hey hey casualty hi me you're one of my favorite shows I would die to be a regular for a while you also don't have any non-binary people on the show anymore you don't have any non-binary people on the show anymore so hire me you'll be you'll be taking multiple boxes I'm also disabled remember I have other disabilities going on I don't think any of your other doctors have disabilities anymore no I think they're all gone too so anyway want to take some boxes you can pay me you can pay me anyway that's my video for this week kind kind of slagging off one of my favorite shows but I I do feel a little bit betrayed honestly a little bit betrayed by this how it's been going so far to be fair I think people should engage critically with media they enjoy because it can be very easy to ignore bad or shitty or like just generally lackluster parts of shows that they love so that's me doing that right now I'm engaging critically with a show I love okay if this man is not autistic in the next few weeks I'm I'm I'm having a funeral you know anyway that's my video for this week don't forget to like comment subscribe watch my other videos because the watch time is kind of the thing that we still have to do for partner anyway I'll see you next week bye [Music]